A league of its own
The English Football League wants to connect with brands keen to engage with the communities represented by its 72 clubs up and down the country.
As it emerges from the challenges brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, the English Football League sees opportunities to align with sponsors seeking to tap into the country’s most popular sport, and the competition’s local roots.
Like all sporting institutions, the EFL, which oversees a collective of 72 clubs split into three divisions below the Premier League, and two cup competitions, has been adversely impacted by Covid-19, as the revenue streams of its members were ravaged by the absence of spectators and the difficulty in attracting new commercial partners.
This has been reflected in the significant financial losses of many teams, and points penalties for Championship outfits Derby County and Reading, at a time when Premier League clubs, with the security of highly lucrative broadcasting deals, have been more insulated against the crisis.
However, the EFL was able to pivot to address the fallout from the pandemic, procuring aid from the top flight and revising its UK television rights deal with Sky, with clubs able to stream all of their matches live while fans were excluded, boosting income from this source in the process.
The league has also retained, and in some cases extended, deals with sponsors, and is in the market for further partners potentially looking for a positive corporate social responsibility relationship, and attracted by the changed commercial and societal landscape.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all approach,” said the EFL’s chief commercial officer Ben Wright. “What I would say is our world continues to evolve, and the way we work with brands continues to evolve, particularly driven by technology, and what’s been really interesting off the back of the pandemic is that we’ve received a lot more CSR-type briefs.”
Revenue sources
Although it lives in the shadow of the global monolith that is the Premier League, the EFL has been a success story in itself, with attendances across the Championship, League One and League Two totalling 18.3 million in 2018/19, the highest figure for 60 years.
Indeed, the Championship is widely regarded as the wealthiest and the most competitive second-tier league in the world, and boasts various high-profile clubs that have graced the top division in the recent or more distant past, including AFC Bournemouth, Blackburn Rovers, Fulham, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield United and West Bromwich Albion.
EFL clubs are largely sustained by matchday income, mostly ticket sales, which, prior to the pandemic, came to around ￡250m per year, and broadcasting revenue amounting to ￡170m per year from domestic and international networks.
This is topped up by proceeds raised from sponsorship, including shares of the EFL’s title deals with Sky Bet for the three divisions, Carabao for the EFL Cup and Papa John’s for the EFL Trophy, and these partnerships have withstood, and, it is claimed, diversified as a result of Covid-19.
Speaking on the On Brand podcast sponsored by ALF Insight, Wright said: “The one thing that we’ve probably seen change from the brands that we deal with, in what is hopefully the tail end of the pandemic, is that there’s a real sense that giving back and being seen to be supportive to the communities that they operate in is important, and we’ve really seen that start to come through.
“That’s not only with brands that we’ve got relationships with, that’s with ones we’re in discussions with about the future, and also some that we’ve had discussions with that haven’t ended up in a relationship with us, but who we know are looking that way.”
With spectators largely excluded from stadiums in the delayed climax to 2019/20 season and most of the 2020/21 campaign, clubs were increasingly reliant on the income from Sky, under the broadcaster’s five-year, ￡595m rights deal that runs to 2024.
However, a further ￡45m was raised last season from an expansion of the UK live streaming offering, with fans able to watch any match for ￡10 each on the EFL’s iFollow and club-owned platforms, while season ticket holders had complimentary access.
“That’s not necessarily a direct replacement [for matchday income] but clearly it was a way of making sure that all supporters could see matches, and generated some revenue for our clubs at what was a very difficult time,” said Wright.
It has also had the effect of consolidating the role of digital in the EFL’s marketing mix, and its importance to partners as, while average crowds this season are flat versus 2019/20, streaming figures are up 75% on that campaign.
The commercial chief said: “The legacy of the pandemic is not a cannibalisation of attendance but more familiarity with the streaming proposition.”
He further claimed that that the increased use of technology, accelerated by Covid-19, has resulted in “a much more direct relationship with the fan, or what you would term the consumer, than we used to have...
“The analogy I’d like to use is that we’ve probably always been a wholesaler so we’ve sold our relationship with the supporter via a third party, whether that’s a broadcaster or a partner, and effectively they’ve paid us for that privilege, and then marketed it on our behalf. Now we’ve probably moved toward being a hybrid of a wholesaler and a retailer, with a direct relationship with the consumer… and the data to support that.”
Main sponsors
The relationship with sponsors has also changed, and continues to develop, as brand objectives shift, content is available across multiple media platforms, and the needs of consumers become more sophisticated.
Wright, who had spells at Carlsberg, the Football Association, Tottenham Hotspur and Wasserman Media Group before joining the EFL in 2014, said: “If I wind back to when I started 20 years ago, the golden goose for most sponsors was branding in a double page spread in the News of the World because it was about getting the logo in context, not just for brand awareness, but being seen to be aligned to a sport and therefore a target audience where there was a high number of people.
“Obviously the world has changed, and you now have all the different ways that you can target and market to an audience, particularly with the advent of technologies.”
Sky Bet, originally an arm of the broadcaster, but now wholly owned by gambling giant Flutter Entertainment, has given its name to the EFL since 2013, and its current five-year deal runs through to the end of the 2023/24 season.
Partnerships between UK sports teams and bodies and betting companies are under threat because of the government’s ongoing review of UK gambling legislation, and concerns over addiction, but the league and its headline sponsor maintain that the association is a wholesome one.
“That has changed over a period of time,” said Wright. “Football has always had a relationship with the betting industry. If that’s managed responsibly then it’s fine, and we’ve done a lot of work in that area.
“From a Sky Bet perspective, it’s not about brand awareness. People are aware of the brand, and it’s got a large number of customers. It’s about the context, and a lot of the stuff they do now is about promoting responsible gambling because that’s the major message they want to get across.”
The EFL received a timely boost last July when Carabao, the Thai energy drink, extended its title sponsorship of the EFL Cup by two years to 2023/24. The agreement is understood to be worth ￡6m per year, in line with the current valuation.
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Given the involvement of teams from the Premier League, as well as the EFL, the tournament garners considerable attention from football fans in the UK and beyond, and David Butcher, managing director of Carabao in the UK and Ireland, said at the time: “The competition has been a fantastic asset for the brand, giving us the opportunity to grow our customer base in the UK, at the same time raising awareness for Carabao among football fans all over the world.”
At a lower level, pizza delivery chain Papa John’s sponsors the EFL Trophy featuring clubs from League One and League Two and the academy teams of Premier League clubs. The three-year deal runs to 2022/23, and also sees the brand serve as the official pizza of the EFL.
Wright said: “That isn’t really about brand awareness. It’s about context and being seen to be in the right environment, which is when fans are watching matches the food they consume.”
Other sponsors and goals
Recent additions to the EFL sponsorship portfolio include Cazoo, the online car retailer, which has built up a significant presence in UK sport in the last few years.
Under the multi-year agreement signed last March, the firm became an official partner of the league, with access to matchday LED and digital branding, and a presence at all showpiece finals at Wembley Stadium, complementing shirt sponsorship deals it had already secured with Premier League outfits Aston Villa and Everton.
“Cazoo has done a lot of activity in sport, and that [deal] is about building awareness quickly and using the platform to reach a high number of people, a large proportion of whom are probably their target market,” said Wright.
Outside football, the brand has partnerships with cricket’s The Hundred, the Rugby League World Cup, the World Snooker Tour, for the Masters and UK Championship, and the Professional Darts Corporation, for tournaments including the World Darts Championship.
Ahead of the current season, EFL struck another innovative deal in the digital space, with eBay, which serves as an example of how the league has sought to re-engage with local communities around its clubs after the impact of the pandemic.
Through the ‘Small Businesses United’ initiative, the renowned e-commerce website is donating advertising space at stadiums to firms that function on the platform, many of which have gravitated there as a result of the restrictions in the retail sector in the past two years.
Wright said of the three-year tie-up: “It’s a really clever way of rewarding their existing sellers and showing what they can do for new sellers, but also providing a reciprocal benefit for our clubs because they’re ingrained in the communities they operate in.”
The venture is intended to develop relationships formed and strengthened during the pandemic, when 85% of clubs were supported by a small local business, and clubs themselves were active in their communities, delivering food parcels, items of PPE and prescriptions, providing laptops and tablets to those requiring them and putting up staff and players to have conversations with fans and vulnerable people.
The EFL’s immediate goals are to help its clubs restore their revenues to pre-pandemic levels, and be financially sustainable, with the hope that matchday, broadcasting and sponsorship income will grow in subsequent years.
In terms of new partners, Wright is eager to work with brands that can best leverage the closer links the EFL now enjoys with fans and local communities, for the mutual benefit of all parties.
He said: “There’s no doubt what we can now offer a partner, and what an increasing number of our partners are interested in is what does our direct relationship with a potential consumer of theirs look like, but also what is the insight we can give them on their behaviours, so what do we know about these people that informs how they manage and live their lives.
“We would love to fill the big gap that is a brand that comes in and supports our work in all of the 72 communities, so all the outreach that the clubs have done during the pandemic, and what we can offer in return is probably the biggest insight into a CSR programme in the UK – direct access to families in homes and their roles in the communities.
“There’s an onus on us to make sure that we’ve got the relevant data and insight, and that’s a journey we’re still on. That doesn’t necessarily need the branding aspect but needs commitment and a relationship with and direct understanding of those individuals in the community, and is probably one thing we would really love to try."
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